Bubblegum Convergence
by Salvage Data
Summary: In most worlds, when Sailor Moon destroyed Beryl, she resurrected herself and others to a "normal life." In another, they and later the Outers reincarnated instead. Now, several years after defeating Largo, the Knight Sabers face shadows of another past.
1. Old and New

Sylia suppressed a sneeze, and involuntarily winced from the sudden stress on her sinuses. Awkwardly freezing in position where she had shifted to look into a cardboard box, Sylia shook her head to clear the lingering traces of the near explosion. Then she carefully finished her move and sat back against a support post with a heavy, oblong object wrapped in brown paper.

The attic was short on head room, as attics often were, though the sunlight streaming in through one window brightened the place considerably. As was also often the case, the attic was crammed with boxes and other miscellaneous items long forgotten or only half remembered by their previous owners. Voices accompanied the sunlight from outside—indistinct but for the occasional shout from someone at play—and also drifted up from the open stairwell leading to the rest of the house.

Half of the contents of the box in front of Sylia had already been unpacked and set carefully in the little free area; some of them unwrapped, all of them sporting plain white stickies labeled with Sylia's precise script.

Sylia stretched her face and waited for the side-effects of the dust in the air to diminish to something manageable. The back of one gloved hand lightly wiped a spot on her cheek, adding a streak of gray dust—the first on her face—in contrast to the darker streaks on her jeans, blouse and the kerchief covering her hair.

After a moment, Sylia carefully worked the string off of the object, mentally noting that it was too worn to be reused, and unwrapped her latest prize.

Sylia blinked at the unlabeled photo album and carefully peeled it open.

She sat there for some time, paging through the album and mulling over the decades old photos from her aunt and uncle's high school days. Her aunt and uncle had known each other then, and had married right after they graduated. They had acquired the house not long after that, and had spent the rest of their lives living there. Sylia Stingray and her brother Mackie had spent some time there after their father's untimely demise, but her aunt and uncle had never talked about their time in high school. Then her aunt had died in a traffic accident a year ago, and Sylia's uncle, it seemed, couldn't face life without her aunt and had faded out over the last year. Her cousins had called with the sad news, and she had been obliged to help with the sorting.

Sylia was never sure just what made everything click into place. It may have been the photos themselves, some phrase shouted by one of her nieces, both factors or something else entirely. A look of dread crashed onto her normally calm face and she reached behind her with one hand for the small of her back.

And her hand came back with something and she raised it above her head and the phrase fell from her rapidly drying mouth.…

Force surged from within, and the dust on Sylia, along with her clothing, was flung away into the colorfully glowing aura that had suddenly surrounded her, and left her nothing but herself. The aura spun then, and streamers of light spun in and wrapped themselves around her, condensing into a short blue skirted white sleeveless outfit with a flap in the back and a brown bow at the neckline. Additional streamers wrapped around her feet and hands and condensed into blue boots with a white trim and long white gloves, respectively.

The surge faded and the aura dropped away from the unchanged attic of the Umino residence.

Sailor Pluto lowered her arm and quietly uttered a vulgar curse.

* * *

"Would you like more tea?"

Sylia shook her head. "No. Thank you, Mrs. Tsukino," she told her hostess as she set down the empty cup on the coffee table and leaned back in the Tsukino's living room couch.

"Please, call me Mika." Mika tucked an errant lock of her gray streaked hair behind one ear.

Sylia smiled at Mika. "If you insist. I'm afraid you'll have to call me Sylia, then."

Mika smiled and nodded. "Sylia then," she agreed. "What brings you here? If I may ask?"

Sylia paused for a second before replying. "When you were in high school, you knew a Naru, correct?"

"Naru Osaka?" Mika's expression was guarded.

"Naru Umino now, but I believe that was her maiden name."

"I did know her." Mika admitted.

"She was my aunt."

Mika's face brightened. "Oh! Well." She paused for a second. "Yes, I did know her. She was my… a friend of my husband's family. I haven't seen her in ages. How is she doing now?"

"I'm sorry, Mika. She passed away a year ago."

Mika looked downcast. "My condolences. She was too nice for what she had to deal with when we were in school."

Sylia looked faintly embarrassed. "I'm afraid that's really what I'm here for. I wanted to know what her life in high school was like; I stayed with her and uncle Umino for a few years but I never got as close to them as I should have."

Mika nodded. "I'm not surprised they didn't say anything. But how did you find out about me, then?"

Sylia leaned forward and flipped open the album resting on the table. It was already facing Mika, who leaned forward to look. "I found this when I was helping clean their attic. My cousins were able to name a few people in the pictures, and I went from there."

"Oh my. I had.…" Her shoulders slumped.

"I'm sorry, Mika. If this—"

"No." Mika raised a hand and looked up at Sylia. "I'd like to… I should remember this, and them." She lowered her hand. "My husband's sister was Naru's best friend at the time. Shingo and Usagi used to tease each other unmercifully, and Usagi was neither graceful nor the greatest student, but she was the sweetest person.… I should remember her because the world doesn't have enough people like that."

Mika gestured, and Sylia took a seat next to her so the two women could both look over the photo album. They paged through it with Mika identifying the faces unfamiliar to Sylia.

"And these were the girls that Usagi and Naru met during the hauntings." She pointed at each of them in turn. "Rei, Ami, Makoto and Min… Minako, I think."

Sylia arched an eyebrow. "Hauntings?"

Mika shrugged. "That's what some of us called it. I don't think anyone ever figured out what was really going on. It was just so strange and creepy. None of it ever made any sense, even when we were in the middle of it, and then the end of it.…"

"What happened?"

"The strange things just… stopped. But those five just disappeared. Without a trace. Naru was… she didn't take it very well."

"They just stopped?"

"They just stopped around Juuban High School right around when those five vanished, though something just like it happened around Infinity Academy later. Considering how that ended, I think we were fortunate at Juuban."

"Infinity Academy?" Sylia caught herself and a smile quirked across her face. "I'm sorry, Mika. I must sound like an echo."

"It's alright, Sylia." Mika nodded. "About a year… no, two years?… later. That one ended with a few students vanishing _and_ the whole school turning into a crater one night. There was plenty in the papers about that for a while. I suspect just hearing about it made it take longer for Naru.…"

Mika shook herself and flipped to the next page of photos.

* * *

Nene shifted uncomfortably in her AD. Police combat gear, and she took a second to gulp oxygen. Behind her, ragged breathing echoed her own condition. She shifted her grip on the length of pipe in her hands and ignored the oils starting to run down the backs of her gloved hands.

It has seemed such a straightforward call, a cleaning boomer gone rogue with Assistant Inspector Nene Romanova and four other AD. P. officers near enough to respond. They hadn't been able to get weapons authorization—some old regulation had recently been shoved on them again—and so had armed themselves with a variety of heavy blunt objects. Four of them had gone into the complex where the boomer was making a mess. Sergeant Leffler and Senior Policeman Matthews had gone into the room where the boomer was polishing some flowers while Nene and Patrolman Tajima were just outside that room. The Inspector and her aide waited for Sergeant Leffler to crush its core processor with a crowbar and stop it so that she could safely examine the remains. But when the Sergeant hit it, the rest of the boomers in the complex had gone crazy.

"You still with me, Tajima?" Nene demanded of the rookie. Her voice quavered.

His voice did not squeak, or break, though it was a near thing. "Yes, ma'am."

Tarou Tajima was a large man, almost on the scale of a sumo wrestler, and with a similar density of muscle. And though he held a dented and bent bar with a death grip, his hands did not shake.

Most of the time.

"Have you—" Nene began, then fell silent. There was some sort of pattern to the boomer attacks.

"Inspector?" Tajima queried. This time his voice did break. He tried again, with better results, and waited for a response.

The data that Nene had seen on the office complex before they went in flashed through her thoughts and dragged with them the list of boomer attacks since they had entered. Data that formed patterns.…

Nene spoke again, this time using her helmet's short-range radio to reach the other patrolman coördinating them with the rest of the AD. P. "Policeman Dolecek." Her voice was low and firm, with all trace of her earlier tension absent. "When do we get some backup?"

"Inspector, ma'am." The voice fumbled for a moment. "Not for a while yet; the rest of AD. P. is after a military boomer on the… on Bayshore Highway #2, somewhere."

Nene's response was almost instant. "No help for it then, we'll have to take them out one at a time. Sergeant Leffler."

"Ma'am?" Another voice crackled over the radio.

"Keep your team moving in a random sweep on fifth. I'll cover sixth with Tajima." She listened to the radio for a few more seconds, adding a word or two of detail, then keyed it off.

She motioned for Tajima to follow her, and the two of them took turns slipping through the complex in a series of random directions that soon had Tajima completely disoriented. Then, when passing by a stairwell, Nene ducked into it.

Tajima blinked and move forward, cautiously searching for whatever had made the Inspector take cover. He got close enough to the stairwell to glance into it, and saw Nene waving him inside.

The patrolman opened his mouth to speak, but Nene frantically shushed him. He stepped into the stairwell.

The Inspector spoke in a low voice. "The boomers have been tapping into the building's security system, which is dead around this stairwell, and on most of fifth." She gestured up at the stairwell security camera, which had a dark indicator light. "They've also been listening to our radios."

Tajima's face darkened. "So what do we do?"

Nene moved down the stairs and motioned for Tajima to follow her. "First, we make sure Leffler and Matthews know." They reached the door to the fifth floor. "C'mon."

Tajima followed her through the door.

"In '33," Nene began quietly as they snuck around the fifth floor, "four boomers attacked AD. P. headquarters. They were independent, but coördinated. That's happened other times, but we got _very_ detailed records in that incident." She stopped for a moment and gestured toward the corner ahead of them. "I think the camera around that corner is operational." She backed them up and started down a different path.

"Right now, unless I miss my guess, a bunch of the boomers in the complex are starting to gather on the sixth floor. Purely by random motion, of course. But when we've finished catching our breath in the stairwell and start our sweep again, our poor little patrol will run into too many boomers and get wiped out. We'll maybe get all of the boomers there too, but there will be just a few too many for us."

"But we're on fif— Oh. Yeah."

Nene flashed a grin back at Tajima. "Exactly.

"Somewhere around here, there's a Buma-LAN server.…" She began to explain as the two of them searched for, then found the other two policemen. The time it took to explain what she had figured out and then invent a plan passed with agonizing slowness, every second increasing the risk that the boomers would realize they had been caught out and overwhelm the policemen.

"That's not much of a plan, Inspector," Sergeant Leffler grumbled when Nene finished talking.

Nene shook her head. "If we take any longer, the boomers will realize we're not just taking a break."

"Yeah," Leffler agreed sourly.

"And a simple plan has less to get screwed up," Nene muttered darkly. Leffler and Matthews must have heard her as grim smiles crossed their faces. "Okay guys, radio silence, let's finish this."

The four of them crept down the stairwell, heading for the basement.

They were on the second floor when Matthews stopped and raised a hand. Before the others had taken three steps they had all stopped as well and were looking expectantly at him. "Elevator," he said softly. "No, more than one."

"They've figured it out!" Nene hissed. "Go!" Putting action to words, she leapt over the railing and plunged three-fourths of the way to the next floor down. She barely paused to stabilize herself before leaping down another three steps and whipping around to zip down the next flight of stairs. The others followed at similar speed.

"She was _wasted_ in records," Leffler laughed breathlessly as he leapt past Matthews and landed scant steps behind Nene.

The four of them burst through the door to the sub-basement and into the utilities area. They were immediately mobbed by about a dozen of the cleaning boomers with a few, small, humanoid general-purpose models among them. All of the boomers were endlessly repeating the half-dozen or so of their stock phrases, creating an eerie cacophony. Both groups slammed into each other, and Nene dodged and swung at the boomers around her while looking frantically for the box that ran the building's utilities and services.

There! She gestured at it and yelled. "There it is! Tajima!"

The elevators next to the stairwell chimed to announce their arrivals and began to open.

Tajima hefted the bar he had been using as a club and chucked it at the bread-box sized electronic brain… and missed.

Two elevator loads of maintenance and utility boomers swarmed into the room.

Nene swung at the boomers next to her—endlessly repeating "Shall I empty the trash now, sir?"—and hit one, cracking its casing and stunning it for a second. She shifted her grip on the pipe, screamed "Shut up!" and kicked it away even as she swung at another boomer.

The four of them quickly formed up with their backs to each other.

"So much for frontal assault!" Matthews shouted. "Now what?"

"I need—" Nene began, and paused to force two boomers away from her. "Open one up!"

Leffler tossed his length of pipe to Tajima, and the big man slammed it down twice against a boomer next to him, cracking it open. Then, with a mangled electronic squeal it keeled over and stopped.

Two cleaning boomers grabbed it and dragged it away.

"Leffler! Crouch!" Nene yelled.

The Sergeant dropped to one knee and the boomer next to him started slapping his faceplate. He raised his arms to defend himself as well as he could, but almost flattened as Nene jumped on his back and used him as a platform to launched herself toward the cracked and inert boomer.

"**Kia!**" Nene screamed as she stabbed and fell at the cleaning boomers dragging the inert one away. Her strike missed the still mobile ones, and shot into the inert boomer, wedging fast. Nene followed, slamming chest and faceplate into the jammed pipe at a bad angle.

There was a loud **crack** and bright flash and Nene bounced away from the now sparking boomer. Her faceplate was dished in around a distorted spider-web of fractures and her arm bent in an abnormal way.

The cleaning boomers grabbed their smoldering load and started dragging it again, while other boomers moved toward Nene.

She screamed hoarsely as Matthews grabbed her by the boot and dragged her clear. The three men formed a protective circle around her. Then the fire alarm cut loose and the sprinkler system rained on them. "How about that?" Leffler laughed, somewhat hysterically.

Across the room, a horde between them, the central computer for the apartment complex was at the edge of the spray targeted at the smoldering boomer that Nene had stabbed. The computer, of course, was a rather cheap commercial box and would never need water resistance. Normally, that is.

There was a faint snap as the computer shorted out, and a second later all the boomers around them started wandering around aimlessly. Stunned, the three men paused for a moment.

Leffler stared. "Nice work," he said softly. Then he shook himself and activated his radio, calling for help as the other two knelt to assist Nene.

* * *

Superintendent Daley Wong leaned forward at his desk and spoke into the speaker-phone. "So you took out the coördinating unit and the others quit. I wouldn't have expected that to work."

Nene's voice echoed from the phone. "Neither did I! I was really hoping to run 'Network Shutdown' on it."

"Just like that?"

Daley grinned as Nene replied hotly. "No! Not 'just like that!' But those cheap, commercial boxes are awfully trusting of anything with physical access. You'd think that after fifty years people would— Oooh.… This stuff is good."

"I take it the pain medication just kicked in?"

Nene giggled. "Oooh, yeah."

Daley chuckled. "Okay, just one more thing."

"What is it?"

Daley paused for a second before continuing. "You've been in AD. P. for years, and if you take it on yourself to pull grandstanding stunts like that again… well, in your case you go back to playing traffic cop. I do _not_ want my most experienced people getting themselves killed pulling bone-headed stunts. Understand?"

Nene let out a small "Yes," after few seconds.

"Good." He relented and continued in a more normal voice. "Oh, and take the rest of the week off. There's no sense in your coming in and taking longer to heal up."

Nene's response sounded more energetic this time. "Is that an order, sir?"

Daley grinned. "Sure. I order you to heal faster. Can you handle that?"

Nene giggled. "I'll give it my best shot, sir!"

A few words and a moment later, Daley hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair.

"Hey! chief," Nene's friend Naoko from Records popped her head in the door. "I've got the rough draft of the report on today's highway chase."

Daley frowned at her. "Don't call me 'chief,' " he complained.

"Okay, chief," she agreed, grinning. Naoko slipped through the door and tossed the report on Daley's desk. He leaned back further in his chair and propped his feet on the report. Naoko looked offended. "Hey! someone put a lot of effort into that, chief!"

"Yes, it's just the right height." Daley looked thoughtfully at her. "You know," a sly grin eased onto his face, "if I'm chief that makes you superintendent… and all this paperwork is yours." His grin widened at Naoko's wide eyed look and the panic creeping into her expression. "In fact, you'd better hurry to get this ready for turnover to the new chief."

Naoko froze for a second. "Ack! that's today, isn't it?" Daley nodded. "Sorry, Daley, I've got to run to get my desk cleared—I thought that was tomorrow!" Naoko scrambled through the door, calling back over her shoulder. "I'll see you at the meeting!"

Daley waited. A moment later Naoko stuck her head through the door again.

"Um, how's Nene?"

"She burned her hands—only first degree—and broke an arm, but she'll be fine. I told her to take some time off, but I'll bet you she shows up for the meeting with the new chief today."

Naoko looked relieved. "Thanks, Daley!" She disappeared again.

Daley waited a moment, then he grabbed the report and began to page through it.

* * *

"Cut. Cut! Okay everyone, relax now."

Linna relaxed from the pose in which she had frozen at the end of the scene. She kept an eye on the director as she ran a hand through her short, sweat-damp hair and stretched a little to loosen muscles that threatened to become sore.

Director Forreaux scribbled some notes in his palmtop and looked up at the cast on stage. "Okay everyone, you did good. I'll need a few days to sort out who gets what and I'll let you all know on Monday. Go get some rest. Shoo! Shoo!" His hands fluttered at the cast.

Linna Yamazaki watched him for a moment, grinning at his capering antics, as some of the other try-outs gathered around to beg for hints. She shook her head and headed out to change.

Twenty minutes later she slowed at the sight of the director standing patiently by the exit. "Ah! Ms. Yamazaki!" He nervously scratched behind his ear.

"Mr. Forreaux," Linna responded, a bit slowly. She hadn't worked with him for very long, but already recognized that gesture as a bad sign. Although something didn't add up.

"I have to apologize for delaying you like this," he said, his French accent thicker than usual. "But I wanted to tell you in person.

"I don't think the dance line is where you belong."

Linna stared at him blankly for a moment. "I see," she said in a mildly curious voice. "Where do I belong?"

A wide grin exploded on the director's face, and he told her. "I realize," he added, "that will require you to master a rather challenging solo sequence—"

Jean Forreaux stopped trying to speak as Linna's lips interrupted his. After a moment she pulled away and quietly thanked him.

Then her hand came up and lightly slapped his cheek. "And if you try to tease me again, I shall have to be stern with you." She stated, mock sternly and with a smile still on her face.

The director pulled himself together after a moment, just before the doors closed behind Linna. "The first rehearsal is on Wednesday," he called to her. "Don't forget!"

He watched for a moment through the glass doors at her swaying away, then absently straightened his tie and walked further into the building, humming a cheery little tune.

Linna dodged the spray from traffic and hunched inside her raincoat as the gritty mist permeating Mega-Tokyo threatened to return to rain. She turned the corner at a brisk walk and all but dove into Sylia's waiting car.

"Home, James." Linna sniffed haughtily.

"But I am not James," Sylia protested, even as she pulled into traffic. "I take it the audition went well?"

Linna's grin answered Sylia's small smile. "Better than that, Jean's asked me to take the lead dancing role."

"Jean?"

Linna laughed. "The director. He's a bit hard to read, but I think he likes me. He also tried to pretend he had bad news after the audition." She cheerily summarized her day.

A moment later Linna's voice broke a silence that Sylia hadn't realized was there. "So how much _can_ you talk about it?"

A small crease slipped onto Sylia's face. "If I asked you to stop doing that again, would you?" Linna was getting entirely too good at reading her mood.

"Um, out of everyone we know, is there _anyone_ who would?"

They glanced at each other and nodded. "Nene," they said in unison.

Linna waited a moment, then tried again. "Seriously, Sylia, you look… tense." She waited.

Sylia remained silent.

Linna finally spoke again. "This doesn't have anything to do with our… hobby, does it?"

Sylia smiled a bit, relaxing. "No. It doesn't." The smile faded. "It's something that came up when I helped sort things at my uncle's place."

"Family problems?"

"Of a sort.…"

"Those are always among the hardest ones, aren't they?"

Sylia nodded. "It probably would have been easier if Mackie had been able to make it."

"You were close to them, weren't you?"

"More to my aunt than uncle, but the two of them were the ones who took in Mackie and I the first year after our father died." Sylia's hands tightened on the wheel.

"Speaking of the little voyeur, how is Mackie doing right now?"

Sylia relaxed a little. "Quite well. Did I mention that he'll be back here in about a week?"

"So soon?" Linna slumped back in her seat, shaking her head. "It seems like he only just left. Come to think of it, though—" she frowned thoughtfully "—you _did_ mention something about it… last month? My. Time flies."

Sylia shook her head, a small smile growing on her lips. "I think you're just keeping yourself a little busy. Working _and_ getting into a musical?" Granted, Linna had cut back to a part-time schedule at her stock brokerage and the musical was still technically in the amateur circuit, still.…

"I am a woman of great talent."

"I see."

"Although I don't suppose my schedule compares to yours. You've practically vanished since you got back from your relatives." Linna paused, Sylia had almost impercepitably started to tense up again. "You're not lining up another round of _paint-ball_ on us, are you?"

"No, nothing like that. I've just been trying to tie up some loose ends, that's all."

Linna looked skeptically at Sylia. "This isn't going to cut into things like last time, is it? I mean, I was hoping you could make time for a night on the town." Linna grinned slyly. "And Nene's buying."

Sylia, finally, laughed softly. "I do _not_ want to miss that."

* * *

"There. You see?"

Naoko frowned at Daley for a second, then turned back to watch Nene struggling from a taxi. "She's turned into a workaholic!" Naoko grumbled, then excused herself to go give Nene a hand.

Daley just smiled silently at the retreating Naoko, then, after a glance at the clock, started his own rush down the hall.

Nene made it into the building before Naoko reached her.

"Nene! I can't believe you!" Naoko complained as she reached the pale red-head. She held Nene gingerly at a distance and examined her, frowning at the single layer of gauze on Nene's hands.

Nene frowned back. "I'm not made of glass, you know," she grumbled, a little breathlessly.

"What are you doing here? You've got the day off," Naoko continued as if she hadn't heard. With Nene still moving forward, Naoko relented and escorted Nene toward her desk, fussing over her the whole way.

"Owie," whispered Nene as she settled into her chair, the cast on her arm making a gentle thunk when it bumped her desk.

"You should go home," Naoko insisted again, hovering over her. Nene gingerly flexed her fingers in the cast. "Or at least answer my question," Naoko added.

"It doesn't make any sense." Nene said, staring forward blankly.

"What?"

Nene turned and focused on Naoko. "The rogue boomers in the complex today. The whole thing doesn't make any sense."

Naoko jammed her hands on her hips. "You really should be resting now, you know, not working."

A sly smile teased the corners of Nene's mouth. She leaned back in her chair and placed her feet up on the desk. "Okay, I'm resting," she giggled.

"At least that got you away from the keyboard," Naoko muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"Ah Leon! You tease me so!" Daley sighed theatrically as he approached. "I see your influence everywhere." He grinned at the two women and shook his head at Nene. "You _do_ have the rest of the week off you know."

Naoko looked at her watch. "The meeting's over already?"

Daley nodded. "Chief Kobayashi apparently doesn't believe in wasting time. She's already scheduled most of the rest of the month."

"What did I miss?"

"Hmm? Oh, just that she's going to completely overhaul the AD. P." Nene's and Naoko's jaws dropped. Daley paused thoughtfully and continued. "That and she's only here temporarily until she thinks we're ready for a new permanent chief."

"She's a _temp?_" Nene squeaked.

"Yup. I've heard she's in line for a really high slot, so I guess this is her way of killing time until the red tape is out of the way."

"Where'd you hear—no, Leon, right?"

Daley grinned and looked over at Naoko, who blushed.

"Naoko?"

"Well, I've got this cousin.…"

Daley held up a hand. "Say no more." He looked down at Nene and his smiled faded. "So _why_ are you here?"

Nene slid her feet off the desk and gingerly leaned forward. "The rogue group today; it doesn't make any sense." Naoko rolled her eyes.

"Do you mean today's incident?"

Nene nodded at him. "Yeah, I mean—" Daley raised a hand and cut her off.

He spoke in a toneless voice. "It was a rare type of failure triggered by long term improper maintenance. Genom's people are already looking into it."

Nene scowled at Daley, then blinked and glanced at Naoko, who was fidgeting uneasily. "Um."

"Now," Daley declared, "you really need to get some rest. C'mon, I'll give you a lift home."

Nene sighed. "Okay.…" And with some help from Naoko, got up to hobble down to the parking ramp.

Daley remained uncharacteristicly silent. As they pulled out into city traffic, he opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, frowned and shook his head, focusing on the controls for a moment as the gritty mist coating the city degenerated into a muddy rain. He smacked the steering column when the wipers failed to start, and was rewarded with them finally flipping into high speed. He fidgeted again for a moment, and punched up a song on the car's decrepit audio player—Nene idly recognized it as a boot-leg Replicants recording—then started the routine of opening his mouth again.

Nene spoke first, her voice oozing sarcasm. " 'A rare type of failure.' "

Daley grinned widely and glanced over at Nene. "Ah! That was beautiful. I couldn't have delivered that line better myself, and you know how I pride myself on my thespian skills."

"You mean on your drama queen skills."

"Well, technically, yes." Daley glanced over at Nene again, and his grin softened at the sight of the small smile on her still too pale face. She followed his statement with a mangled sound, as though she couldn't decide whether to giggle or snort and finally did both.

The lull returned to the car, a bit more relaxed.

"Ah, Leon," Daley muttered wistfully. "If only you'd explain at times."

"I wish the guys on patrol were more like you." Nene broke the lull.

Daley snickered. "Come again?" He glanced over at her. Nene had a wry smile on her face now.

"Most of them don't take me seriously unless I go all formal."

Daley grinned again. "Well, what can you expect? Leffler and Matthews are ex-military. And Leffler has _such_ a traditional background that even I—" Daley indicated himself theatrically "—don't even know his personal name."

Nene frowned thoughtfully. "What about Matthews?"

"Oh. Well.…" Daley paused for a moment to deal with traffic. "It's Guido."

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not; that's the beauty of it."

"Well," Nene snickered, "no wonder."

Daley grinned with her. "I wouldn't worry about it though. From what I know of them I'd say they were _very_ impressed with you today, and aren't likely to be so old-fashioned anymore. Leffler might even tell you his personal name!"

Nene shook her head at this and winced from the motion.

"If only Leon were so easily impressed," Daley sighed wistfully. Then, in a firmer voice. "How good are you with computers?"

Nene blinked at the shift. "Um, decent, I think. Why?" She frowned at him. "This isn't something where you rope me into fixing your system at home for free, is it?"

" 'Fix' is not the right word.…"

Nene shrugged, still frowning. "And I'm really not up to anything today."

Daley returned the shrug. "That's too bad, because this is kind of a rush project. And it's data recovery, more or less."

Nene was still frowning, but more thoughtfully. "Project? This would be on a contract then?" She received a nod from Daley. "Well why not just go to one of the commercial—" Nene closed her mouth with a snap.

"You catch on quick, grasshopper."

"Noooo.…" Nene breathed slowly. "I mean, why _me_?"

"According to my sources, you're good and circumspect. And we could use that."

"We?"

Daley smiled. "Ah, now that's not something I can just give away."

"Daley," Nene growled.

"Seriously."

"Hmph."

"The AD. P. is not what it should be, and we're losing our margin for error. We've got a growing list of too many restrictions—the new weapons restrictions you ran into today—and equipment that just isn't keeping up with the technology curve.

"And…" Daley clenched his jaw for a moment. "And we've got leaks."

Nene looked at him silently, her face drawn and pale again.

His voice dropped, and Nene had to strain to make out what he said. "That Genom toady showed up with too much authorization for today to have been an actual malfunction, and he knew just which precinct where we routed all of the gear we collected. Any chance we might have had to look at what happened and plan better for the next incident was gone before we even had a real hand on it. Poof!" Daley snapped his fingers and clenched his jaw.

Then he took a deep breath and let it out. "Sorry," Daley glanced over at Nene and smiled wryly. "Sometimes I get carried away."

"That's okay." Nene said weakly.

"We really need all the advantages we can get, though. If you're willing to help it'll mean extra work, irregular hours, and not much in the way of rewards other than a positive attitude from a few people."

"Um."

"And it might—just might, mind you—give you a few opportunities to move up."

Nene took in a quick breath. "I'm in," she popped the words out, then took a long deep breath.

Daley grinned at her. "There's nothing to be 'in.' I'm only looking for someone to take on one extra job." He winked.

"Now that I've put my foot into it, what's the job?"

Daley shrugged. "Putting together whatever data fragments you can from wireless traffic recorded at the residential incident."

Nene winced. "That's going to be almost nothing. There's likely to be dozens of sources and only a fraction of the packets from any given one. Plus, the stuff we can use is probably encrypted. This is really grasping at straws."

Daley nodded. "If we'd had more time with the hardware.…"

"Yeah. I'll take a look at it, though I don't think I'll get anywhere for a while, if at all."

"You've got the rest of the week off to heal up first," Daley reminded her. "Go ahead and take as long as you like."

"Okay." She paused. "Um, where do I get the recording?"

Daley pulled a data cartridge out of his pocket. "Here you go." He handed it to Nene and smiled wryly. "It's too bad we couldn't make an image of that boomer group server's drive before Genom 'requisitioned' everything."

"Yeah," Nene agreed quietly, "that's too bad." She fumbled the cartridge one-handed for a second and slipped it into her purse.

* * *

"You know what we need?" Noriko asked, and then answered her own question. "We need refills." She stared mournfully at the empty glass in front of her.

There were five others—three of them other band members, and two teens from the stage crew—at the table with her. Two tables rather, pulled together in the still sparsely populated bar and with their attendant chairs collected around them. Low sunlight had thrown patches of brilliance nearby and mock-threatened to cover their table before sunset.

"What are you asking me for?" Priss demanded, as she tilted her chair onto two legs and leaned against the wall. She took a pull from the bottle in her hand.

"I'll get it!" Kai enthused, getting up.

"No!" Several voices chorused. Noriko clarified: "Yuu will get it."

Yuu gave her a momentary blank look, then, shrugging, stuffed his hands in his pockets and shuffled up to the bar.

"I could have gotten it," Kai complained as he sat back down. He brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

Noriko snorted. "You'd have brought back that rotgut that Priss likes."

"I would?" Noriko confirmed his question with a nod.

"Noriko," Priss began. "You insulted my drink."

Noriko waved her hand dismissing the issue. "It'll get over it."

Priss shifted her grip on the bottle and grinned viciously at Noriko. "No it won't, but you will," she growled.

Sho and Nobuya—the teens—glanced at each other and tensed.

Priss maintained her glare for a few seconds, then started snickering. Noriko joined in with outright giggles.

"I don't get it." Kai looked back and forth between the two women.

Priss snorted and took another pull from the bottle.

A full pitcher settled on the table. Yuu followed to his seat and refilled the empty glasses.

Noriko rested an elbow next to her glass, then raised it. "To success." She clinked her glass against Yuu's, starting a series that washed across the table and included the two teens.

They took it as a cue and talk turned to the band's tour—their stops past and expected before returning to Mega-Tokyo—and the concerts they had left in Sho and Nobuya's home town before they moved on. When they asked about one of the Replicants' older songs, Priss admitted "We haven't played that one in a long time."

"Why not?" Sho asked her.

"'Cause that one has some tricky chord transitions," Noriko began, "that only Priss had mastered, so she'd have to sing it and play it, too."

"And some things just don't go together," Kai chimed in, "like chocolate and peanut butter." He smiled smugly, then looked blank as laughter rolled around the table. "What?"

Yuu just shook his head at Kai and continued fidgeting with a piece of string.

"Only you would come up with something like that." Priss shook her head at Kai, grinning.

"I don't get it," Kai complained, failing to duck as Noriko reached over and ruffled his hair.

"Don't worry about it, hon'. It's your most endearing quality," Noriko told him.

Nobuya stage whispered to Sho. "If they're going to get started on that again, you get the ice water." A wave of laughter and giggles rippled around the table.

Sho put on a glum expression and stage whispered back. "When Leon shows up you'll have to get used to even more of that."

"But I'm already here!" Kai exclaimed in reference to his stage name. That set off another wave of laughter even as Priss threatened Sho, though she kept grinning through the whole threat. Sho laughed back unrepentantly.

"Hey!" Kai started. "Why do I have to be 'Leon?' Why couldn't I be 'Roy' or something?"

" 'Or something,' just doesn't work, Kai." Priss shook her head at the drummer.

"And 'Roy,' " Noriko waved a hand in Yuu's direction. "is the crazy one. You can't top him there. No one can."

Yuu gave Noriko a long-suffering look, and mouthed "help me" at the boys, setting off another wave of laughter.

"When is Leon supposed to get here, Priss?" Sho asked, after the laughter settled down.

Priss looked at her watch. "He should be getting here any minute now."

"There's someone else named Leon?" Kai asked, surprised.

Noriko nodded. "He's been going out with Priss for six months."

Kai pouted. "She's never gone out with me."

"Kai," Priss began. "Noriko doesn't let anyone go out with you. She's said something about 'protecting the innocent.' "

"I thought Kai was supposed to be the innocent one," Sho said with a hint of uncertainty.

"I think that's what she meant," Nobuya observed.

Priss grinned and shook her head. "You have no idea." Then she set her bottle on the table and fished a phone out of her pocket. "Speak of the devil," she muttered, looking at the display. Then she flipped it open and took the call.

"Damn," she commented after closing the phone.

"He's late again?" Noriko said peevishly.

"He's not going to make it," Priss grimaced. "They had an 'incident' today, and people got killed." She reached for a glass on the table, and Yuu quickly filled it. "Shit," muttered Priss, adding a few more pungent words for good measure.

"Is he.…" Noriko began.

Priss waved a hand as she sipped from the glass. "No, he's fine.…"

"He got saddled with the clean up?" Noriko asked.

"Yup, and probably a triple shift, from the sound of it," Priss admitted. Expressions of sympathy spiked around the table. "You know," Priss began again a moment later, "I think I may try those tricky chords tonight." She held up her hand and looked at it, holding it to shine the light off the scar that ran between her middle fingers on both sides of her hand.

Nobuya blinked and blurted, "Whoa, where'd you get the scar?"

"Now he notices," Sho winced and muttered.

Priss' face tightened as the memory of a boomer slicing open her hard suit flashed through her mind. "Motorcycle accident," she lied.

"That reminds me," said Noriko. She jangled a set of keys in her hand.

Priss narrowed her eyes at Noriko, but put down her glass and tossed the keys from her pocket at Yuu. "Hang on to these for an hour."

Yuu nodded at her and untangled the keys from the cat's cradle they had landed in.

* * *

The temple grounds were dimly lit, though careful placement of the few lights it did have managed to create a welcoming glow. Adding to the wholesome look of the place, the sparking drops from the final burst of evening rain, and the twinkling stars in the now clearing skies rounded out a natural look rare in Mega-Tokyo.

Leon McNichol moved slowly along the path, giving his eyes a chance to adjust to the gentle light.

A hoarse voice growled from the shadows. "By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes."

Leon snorted. "Hello Roy."

"Oh, it's you." Roy said in a normal voice and stepped out of the shadows to stand in front of one of the lights. He held one hand up to his face and examined his thumb closely.

"I hate it when you do that," Leon groused as he squinted at Roy's silhouette.

His face dimly visible, Roy grinned. "What brings you here, copper?"

"You, actually. Remember?"

Roy pondered for a second. "Hmm, that's right. I did."

Leon looked around. "Where's that oversized shadow of yours, by the way?"

"Clyde's researching the nature of Shinto."

Leon gave him a skeptical look. "A Shinto boomer bodyguard?"

"Shinto priest, if he can manage it."

Silence fell in the temple for a moment as Leon digested this. "I'm going to regret asking, but why?"

Roy spoke as though stating the obvious. "So he can perform my funeral rites after I'm assassinated."

Palming his face, Leon asked, "Since he's a bodyguard, wouldn't he be destroyed first when you're assassinated?"

Roy looked, and sounded, surprised. "Huh. You know, I never thought of that."

Leon shook his head and tried to get back on track. "Worry about it later. Why did you call me?"

Roy shook his head, and stepped out into the light. "Walk with me for a ways." Leon sighed and fell in step with Roy as the two wandered the temple grounds.

Several times Roy seemed just about to speak, but repeatedly just shook his head and continued walking. Finally though, he did speak. "Leon," he stopped and put a hand on Leon's shoulder. "This may come as an unpleasant surprise, but there's something rotten in Genom."

" 'I'm shocked, _shocked_ I tell you.' " Leon said, deadpan.

Roy nodded and retrieved his hand. "I'm sorry, I was afraid you would be." He started walking again. "I'm also afraid I can't be too specific—non-disclosure agreement and all that—but I'll do my best to give you a lead."

"Just a lead?"

"Mmm hmm." Roy affirmed, and lead them into a gloomier section of the temple.

"Your troops took down two rogues today," Roy began after a moment. "One of which went rogue today, and the other of which went rogue, or nearly so, several years ago."

"A recycled rogue?"

"Not really. We caught his _incipient_ instabilities during a routine sweep and shut him down. Then we put him in line for analysis, to be followed by reconstruction." Roy lowered his voice. "He was analyzed, but wasn't directed to be reconstructed, until today."

"Cut to the chase, Roy. What happened?"

Roy stopped walking, and lowered his voice to a near whisper. "_Someone_ replaced the standard, trickle power core with a full-fledged charged one with dummy readouts. We had pulled our troubled boy out of storage and were moving him when _someone_ activated him. I lost some good troops today, Leon. That is not something I can let pass."

Leon nodded. "Neither can I."

* * *

As she had several times before, Sailor Pluto stood by a set of immense gates set in an otherwise featureless gray place. Again, she focused her attention on the gates.

After an indeterminate moment and no reaction, Sylia gave up and turned to the next item on her list of experiments. Concentrating briefly, she shifted back to her normal self.

She had a sudden—brief—impression of the gates turning their attention on _her_, and that she didn't belong there.…

Sylia groaned softly and picked herself up from the floor of her apartment, making a note to never do that again.

After getting some aspirin, she started considering the _impression_ she had gotten from the gates.

* * *

Chief Kobayashi paused in setting up her office and studied Leon for a second.

Shades in place and leaning against the door-frame, Leon stared back at the petite gray-haired woman. "Why'd you want to see me?" he asked, bluntly.

It had been a long shift; chasing down a military boomer, and then starting the investigation into its origins had taken their toll and Leon had already been near the end of his normal shift when the chase started. New chief or not, he didn't have the energy left to try to make a good first impression.

On the other hand, he'd heard good things about the woman in front of him. A native of Tokyo, she had been a career policewoman since she graduated from college, though she had been stuck with a dead-end post for years. She had gotten out of that, though, and was making up for it fairly well when the quake hit in '25. Surviving the quake and her efforts in the aftermath had made her briefly semi-famous, and she had risen very rapidly through the ranks since then. He took in her appearance—a plain, pressed dress-suit, long graying hair tied back in a ponytail—and made some effort to straighten up from his slouch.

"I'm going to need to borrow one of your people for a while. I'm afraid I can't be too specific, though it shouldn't be for more than a few weeks." She frowned at him. "How long have you been on shift?"

"I dunno. Is this Tuesday?"

"No." Chief Kobayashi suppressed a sigh. "Look, go home, get some rest, and we'll talk about this more when you get back. For now, I'll give you this to sleep on. I need someone, preferably at the Superintendent level, to work with me as I tear through this precinct and shake out the deadwood. We'll discuss it after you've slept. Clear?"

"Crystal." Leon blinked at her. He waved sloppily as he straightened up from the door-frame and turned to wander toward the elevators.

Chief Kobayashi sighed, shook her head, and returned to setting up her office.


	2. Doors

Sylia locked the display on her computer, then stood and paced to the center of her apartment's living room.

She pulled a wand from a pocket in her jacket and examined it from all sides for a moment, just as she had done regularly for several weeks.

She shook her head, raised the wand, and after taking a deep breath she said the words.

Ribbons and light filled the room.

Sailor Pluto took another deep breath, and turned her hand just so and a key-like staff faded into view. Turning herself and the orb-topped staff just so, her apartment faded from view to have its place taken by the blank gray quiet of the space in front of the immense Time Gates.

She faced the gates, and this time considered her memories. They were a little fuzzier when she was… transformed like this, but still clear enough. And Sylia kept her attention on the gates while she did so.

This time, the gates reacted.

* * *

The meeting complete, Katherine Madigan bowed to the chairman.

The two of them were in Chairman Quincy's office high up in the Mega-Tokyo Genom tower—well above most other buildings in the city and with a spectacular view of the now nighttime skyline. The office itself had the lighting lowered just enough to let the view into the room, which the two occupants hardly noticed, focused as they were on the end of their meeting.

As always, the bow was shallow—perfect for their difference in rank—with Madigan's shoulders moving down just enough to be apparent.

But it wasn't perfect in execution. Madigan had paused a fraction longer than usual between the end of her meeting with the chairman and her bow to him. Still, it was a small variation, and likely more a concern to Madigan than to Quincy, whose attention to social perfection was more casual. By itself, it would have been a momentary irritation to Madigan, who would have noted the flaw and continued anyway.

Then, in the middle of her bow, she twitched, and caught herself frozen in that position for a fraction longer than usual. A noticeable fraction longer than usual. And she was slower than usual in straightening up again.

Quincy noticed. "Is there something else Ms. Madigan?"

Silence settled into the room. "No," Madigan said at last, her voice almost a whisper.

"You may go then, Ms. Madigan," Quincy reminded her, relaxed in some secret amusement as he almost always seemed to be.

Madigan almost bowed again, but checked it into a curt twitch of her head. And after two seconds turned and walked out the door. Moving all the while as a junior exec in her first meeting with the chairman.

The door had just closed behind Madigan when Quincy spoke again. "You may enter."

A door—one other than the one Madigan had used—opened to admit Dr. Andrew Pemberton—a short, pudgy man with gray-streaked hair. He was as well dressed as Madigan, though in a conservative suit-and-tie rather than her fashionable attire, and lacked her aura of perfection—to the point where he projected an air of being the mellow fatherly type.

"We're getting measurable results," Andrew said as he reached Quincy's desk. He casually stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"Good," stated the chairman. "I take it you can now give me some estimates on your progress."

Andrew continued as though Quincy hadn't spoken. "The pattern is screwy, but if it's fractal like I think it is, we should have it worked out in about eight to 10 months."

"And if it's not?"

Andrew shrugged. "There's a lot more uncertainty in the time frame. Call it up to 15 months total.

"Of course," he continued, "that assumes no accidents. And given the sorts of things we've seen lately, accidents are a matter of when, not if." He shrugged again. "And for those we're flying blind—they'll introduce unknown delays."

Quincy opened his mouth to speak, but Andrew continued. "Could be six months, could be 10 years, who knows?" Andrew shrugged again, dismissing it. "Anyway, my point is that you were right; we can do this."

Quincy waited a moment, then spoke. "Good. Since a tentative schedule can now be set, I want you to start planning based on that.

"Foremost, barring an accident introducing too much delay, you can plan on adding the layout modifications to conversion nanites. I expect them to be ready one year from now."

Andrew shook his head. "That's hardly viable; even if we finish on the early side, there's no way we'll have had time to find out—" the brows on Andrew's face knotted, and he continued more slowly "—what it does."

Quincy ignored Andrew and continued. "Also, I've considered your request, and you may use the nanites yourself—the enhanced ones, that is."

Andrew stared at the chairman for a moment. "My staff and I make poor test subjects," he growled.

"You'll hardly be test subjects, doctor. You'll need the treatment for your next project."

Again, Andrew stared at Quincy for a moment. "The current project. We're reverse engineering someone else's work, aren't we?"

" 'Recreating' might be a better term," Quincy confirmed.

"From a… mmm, broken copy?" Andrew asked slowly, getting a nod in response. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Wait, we'll need the results of this for our next project?"

Quincy nodded again. "There are special requirements."

"I'll say," Andrew snorted. "Though I don't see what could call for an… mmm, enhanced research team."

Quincy reached under his desk, and brought a small, black sphere into view.

Andrew sucked in his breath as he stared at the baseball sized object. The light in the room, already at a dim, night-time setting, faded into gloom. And Quincy's voice came at him from far, far away.

"The project will involve unsealing a container and accessing the contents."

"I see." Andrew's voice echoed distantly.

"Without, of course, allowing it to escape."

"I see." The room became silent as Andrew stared into the dark sphere, a dim highlight shining as a single eye in the darkness, staring out into the room with malevolent awareness.

"May I return to work now, Mr. Chairman?"

"You may." Quincy placed the black sphere under the desk.

Andrew remained motionless, all the color gone from his face.

"You may go, Dr. Pemberton," Quincy reminded him.

Andrew nodded slowly to the chairman, and walked stiffly from the room.

* * *

"_There_ you are," a deep, booming voice noted.

"I was somewhere else?" a more mellow voice responded.

A third, boyish voice informed him, "You seemed distracted."

"Ah, that. Old friends arrived."

"Old friends? I was under the impression that all had gone on or begun again." The first again.

"Mmm, yes. Perhaps they're better described as new friends grown old."

"Ah," the boyish voice noted. "Her."

"And her husband," the second clarified.

"She waited for him then? I see." From the deep voice.

"And they've gone on." The second noted.

"Passing." From the third.

"Passing." The second agreed.

"Peace." The first concluded.

They paused timelessly.

"She's not the only visitor we've had." From the third.

"Nor the last." The first added.

"Oh?"

The first again. "The Gatekeeper, the new one, examines the Gate, looking to her dead past."

"Ah. And the old one?"

"Looks too far to futures unborn; the new one bears the scars of chaos," the third noted.

From the first. "And she is very subtle. Others stir as well. The Outer Warriors didn't do as thoroughly as needful."

"Nor did the Inner Warriors," the third added.

"Does this concern us?" wondered the second. "We are spent keeping chaos unmade."

"None remain." The first.

"I am disturbed," the second noted.

"I am sorry." From the third.

"The Gatekeeper stands by the open Gate, and we can not interfere with her," the first pressed.

"It must fall to _him_ then," the second determined.

"Yes," agreed the first and third.

"We promised we would not, sans dire straits. Is there another?"

"We touch the infinite, yet we are still finite. Any other is still unknown to us." The first.

The second followed the implications. "And as far outside as we are, the unborn future inexorably becomes the dead past and leaves us too little to find another. Thus, that way is too chancy."

"Chaotic," agreed the third. "Dire straits, indeed."

"Then we shall have to Wake him, and call upon him to stop the Gatekeeper."

"Yes," agreed the first and third.

"Does he have sufficient time to Wake?" worried the second.

"I do not think so," the third offered.

"We shall have to make a rush job of it," decided the first.

The third warned, "He shall damn us doubly."

"Yes," agreed the first and second.

"If he survives," added the first.

"Triply if he dies," concluded the second.

"Will we be able to make it up to him?" wondered the third.

The first speculated. "Perhaps, perhaps not. We shall know better, as we begin."

"So mote it be." Offered the third.

"So mote it be." Grudged the second.

"So mote it be." Concluded the first.

* * *

Leon ran a hand across his face, and paused to rub his eyes.

Traffic was light, which was fortunate since sleep called and Leon was opposed to waiting. He hung his shades from the neck of his shirt and slipped into traffic. Pulling out onto the highway, the lights from the cars around him blurred into streams of red and white. Ghostly patterns refracted and reflected through the windows and danced in his peripheral vision.

Moving not much faster than he was, a car slowly passed in the other lane. The lidless gaze of the dessicated driver momentarily burned in his direction, then swept forward with the car as it coasted ahead.

Leon yawned, and tried to shift to a more alert posture.

The highway curved into a re-zoned area where derelict rubble still waited to be cleared, and the city lights dimmed with the change in scenery. Fortunately, the mountains of burning corpses more than compensated and visibility on the highway was better than usual.

Leon sped up to take advantage of the light while it lasted.

Traffic thinned as the evening progressed, and soon Leon was alone on the streets zipping around the ruins of Mega-Tokyo. The highway curved back closer to the core of the city and lighting was again reduced to the sickly glow from spotty street-lights.

Leon glanced into the rear-view mirror just as a rectangle of light from outside swept across the back seat of the car and the skeleton lounging there. He changed lanes to the exit ramp and wound through the city streets until he reached the parking garage by his apartment and pulled in. With the car parked, he opened the door, turned to put his feet on the ground, and bent double to put his head between his knees and let blood rush to his brain.

Pulse pounding in his ears, and still taking in gulps of oxygen, Leon cautiously stood up and looked around. Nothing in the garage caught his attention. It was barren—not sterile or dead—with scummy puddles and the faint odor of mildew and flowers in the air.

Leon rubbed a hand across his face. "I've got to get some sleep," he muttered, and locked the car.

_The door is open._

Leon paused and checked the doors to make sure they were all locked and stared at the car for a moment longer. He turned toward the elevator.

_The door is open._

He growled irritably and checked the trunk. Locked. He exhaled a deep breath noisily and headed up to his apartment.

When he got to the apartment door, he checked it. Locked. Fumbling with exhaustion, he retrieved his keys, opened the door and stumbled in. He locked and chained the door behind him.

Tossing his jacket on a chair, Leon made a quick search of the apartment, finding nothing out of the ordinary. He checked the lock on the door again. Still locked.

Leon stumbled into the bathroom and splashed some water from the sink on his face. Feeling a little refreshed he raised his head to the mirror and looked closely at his flesh-less skull. He shook his head, sighed again, and headed for the bedroom. He was still a few steps away from his bed when it hit again.

**_The door is open!_**

Leon was vaguely aware of impacting the mattress before everything went black.

* * *

Red eyes.

Red eyes glowing, the ruined head of Largo stared at him, face frozen in an open mouthed silent laugh.

A cold wind cut through his shirt, the tatters of his shirt, and goose-bumps rippled over his skin.

Mad silent laughter.

Still clouds hung oppressively over him, unresponsive to the rising icy wind, and cast grim direction-less daylight over the empty streets and buildings all around him.

Largo stepped into view through an open door.

Largo stepped into view through an open door.

Largo stepped into view through an open door.

The trio began dancing, a twisted mockery of human motion, dancing with phantom partners and each other. Fluid, graceful steps circled silently around him madly dismissive. Dancing briefly with partners now torn apart by the Hyper Bumas' terrible, beautiful strength in perfect steps that spun the ghastly remains into a growing pyramid.

The Knight Sabers joined the dance. Four and three in terrible perfection, and the blood, the blood, the blood that never touched Largo rained on the Knights and washed away their armor.

And the pyramid had grown too steep and swaying in the wind it bent and bent and bent and tipped and fell and rained over the four women who still danced with Largo.

"Priss!" Leon gasped hoarsely, the only sound in the silent city where even the wind was silent.

Priss shook herself, and crawled out of the fallen pyramid of bodies. She looked at Leon emptily for a moment, blood pouring from her clothes and hair. "I have to purify myself," she told him, and stepped to the river.

The drizzle of blood spat, smoked and hissed as it hit the surface of the river, creating a front of noxious fumes leading her march. Priss put her boot into the river, and upon contact, the leather boiled and steamed as the acid ate into and through it, thickening the cloud around her. Priss kept moving forward and down, and when she was waist deep in the river, she bent down and immersed herself, setting the area around her furiously a-boil.

Tormented suggestions shaped themselves in the churning miasma.

"Priss." Leon whispered.

The churning subsided, and the vapors thinned.

Priss straightened up in the river of acid. Now free of flesh and blood, her perfect metal surface gleamed in the cold, cloudy daylight. She turned around to face Leon. Lidless empty eyes glowing red, she focused on him and opened her mouth laser.

Leon didn't wait. He had already dived behind the remnants of a wall and was scampering for more cover when the first shot boomed next to him. Then a second, and a third, and the explosions settled into a rhythmic pounding.

A rhythmic tapping.

An a-rhythmic tapping.

Leon cracked open one eye. The knocking at his door continued. Muzzily, he shook his head and maneuvered upright off of his bed, nightmarish images already fading. Idly, he noted that he had fallen asleep in his clothes. And someone was still knocking at his door.

He unlocked and opened the door.

"Hi Leon!" the blond and tanned Lisa Vanette chirped cheerily. Then the smile slipped from her face as she looked at him seriously. "Are you okay? You don't look so good."

"I'm just tired. Long day." A thought skittered into his brain, though her name still hadn't. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm visiting my uncle Todo! He's getting out of the hospital this week and my aunt and I thought we'd invite lots of friends over to have a 'Welcome Home' party.… Are you sure you're okay?"

Leon nodded, finally recognizing her. "I'll just get some sleep and I'll be fine." Lisa looked at him suspiciously.

"Well, okay, if you're sure." She brightened again. "Do you want to help welcome uncle Todo home? I can just leave the details in your mailbox or something when everything's set."

Leon nodded. "Sure." He fumbled with his pockets for a second, and a hint of worry clouded Lisa's features. He found what he was looking for, and handed Lisa his card. "You can send it all by e-mail, or call, whatever."

"Okay!" She smiled sunnily at him. "I'm really sorry for waking you," she said in a softer voice.

"G'night Leon." She stepped back from the door and waved.

"Good night, Lisa." Leon closed the door.

Locked it.

He stumbled back toward his bed. This time, he managed to sit down on the side of it. He removed his shirt and tossed it at a chair.

As the shirt tumbled off the chair and onto the floor, Leon fell backwards onto the mattress.

* * *

"The door is open," a voice whispered.

"The door is open," another voice whispered.

Leon ran through the streets. The empty, silent streets. Faceless buildings loomed above him and cast long shadows, then longer as the sun dipped below the clouds and briefly painted the world red before plunging below the horizon and dragging darkness in its wake.

The buildings lit.

Thousands of squares of light, red and red and red, shone around him.

Leon ran, lungs burning in the cold, dead air. And he could see through the windows! He could see into the buildings! He could see into a thousand nightmares!

"None must pass." A woman's voice. Somewhere ahead (behind) him. Softly spoken, clearly heard.

And Leon was on his knees in a plaza looking up at the Tower (the mountain). "None must pass through _that_ door," a woman told him softly. And she offered a hand to Leon to help him up.

And he was standing and she was sitting on the crescent moon and her silver hair was long and beautiful and her dress elegant and perfect. "You must climb the mountain," she told him and gestured up up up.

The prince stared up at the glacier capped Mount Olympus that towered above the kingdom (a small kingdom, but rich with wisdom), and turned to the woman. Behind him, nightmares oozed from the windows of the buildings and plopped quietly as rain into the streets.

"Climb the mountain and guard the door," she said sweetly. The feathers of her wings ruffled in a soft zephyr.

"What door?"

She shook her head and smiled, pointing up the mountain. Then she took a red, red rose and set it behind his ear.

The prince shook his head, the rose's aroma gently surrounding him and the thorns lightly pricking his skin.

"Climb," she whispered. Cool lips brushed his fevered brow.

The prince climbed.

And he was standing at the entrance to a cave (_the_ cave) and another prince (a ghost) and another (a ghost) and another (a ghost) welcomed him and as one whispered. "The door is open."

And again the prince asked. "What door?"

Two of the others shook their heads, but the one in the middle gestured into the cave (where ghosts cannot enter), and as the prince stepped into the cave the middle ghost (from the Kingdom Between the Rivers, in the lands of ancient knowledge) whispered into his ear. "The door to the death of the past."

And the prince was alone in the cave walking on the sands (of time) that lined the floor to the gray place ahead of him. He stepped, and saw the woman (girl) kneeling in front of the door that he could only see from the side, and she was looking up (through the door) as a loving daughter looks at her father. And she moved, as if to get up and step through the door, the door, the door.

The prince stepped forward, into the terrible pull of the door.…

And the terrible pull of the door bent his soul and stretched half of him toward its abyssal void.

The prince—

Leon opened his mouth to shout a warning, but his lips moved so slowly and he—

—reached—

—down for his gun, but his hand moved so slow, so slow, so slow.…

—up for the rose by his ear and the soul of his hand plucked the rose and threw. Straight and true the rose flew across the girl's hand just as she reached toward the door (the door, the door!). And the terrible void now had the soul of the prince's hand and pulled and pulled and pulled.…

* * *

Sylia paused. A faint sensation tugged at the back of her hand, like the memory of a scratch, and the air tickled.… The memory of a scent?

Roses?

She lowered her hand and stepped back from the immense gates, again focusing on her father in his laboratory. For a timeless time, she stood there. Then she moved, as if to step forward.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

Sylia shifted, the strange ornate staff-key brought in front of her in a defensive position.

A nearly identical Sailor Pluto stepped into view. With green-black hair trailing into the surrounding mist her sad red-brown eyes met Sylia's tense gaze. She leaned on a staff-key identical to the one held by Sylia.

"Setsuna Meiou," the newcomer identified herself. "Previous Sailor Pluto."

* * *

**Fire. Blood.**

**Screams. Memory.**

Pale wings filled the world and cool hands soothed his brow. He fell, and the screams receded into the distance. A terrible stench—burning blood and rotting roses—filled his nostrils and clung to him. Then it, too, faded.

A face in front of him, becoming clearer and wreathed with silver. Concern wavered onto her features, and a name welled up in his throat, held back by the shadow of the touch of her finger on his lips.

His fall slowed, stopped, and he was cushioned on something soft and warm and he remembered (the screams) and remembered (the screams) and a question welled up and floated through his lips.…

"That's very flattering Leon, but I'm afraid you're in no condition for that right now."

Silver became gold became red, and Leon opened his eyes to Daley's concerned face staring down at him. He blinked a few times and tried to shake away the blurriness.

"Daley," Leon rasped hoarsely, nightmarish fragments already faded to nothing. "What're you doing here?"

"I told you," a muffled female voice piped up. "He's sick."

"Hush Lisa." Daley helped Leon sit upright on the bed. Then he frowned and pulled out a handkerchief. "Could you get a bandage?" he said over his shoulder, then turned to face Leon again. "What did you do to your ear?" He attempted to dab at the side of Leon's head.

Leon waved him off and felt his ear. "My ear?" A smear of blood painted his hand.

Lisa returned with a pack of bandages, breathing through her sleeve. "Do you have any other air freshener?" She handed the bandages to Daley. "The one you're using now is _terrible_." Leon waved vaguely toward the bathroom and Lisa retreated.

Daley cleaned Leon's injury and put a small bandage on it. "It looked worse that it actually was. Did you cut yourself shaving?" He ignored Leon's snarl and continued to examine him. "Your temperature is normal, though you look awfully pale."

A hiss filled the air as Lisa re-entered the room with a can of industrial strength odor neutralizer. She sniffed tentatively. "Better," she announced.

"You need to eat," Daley declared. He paused for a second, then smirked and opened his mouth to continue.

Leon beat him. "Don't go there. I have a headache tonight."

Daley shook his head, still smiling. "I'm not about to take advantage of you, especially in your condition." He sighed theatrically. "Ah, it's so difficult having such high moral standards."

Leon shook his head and winced. "Yeah, food would be a good idea right about now."

"Come with us, it'll be my treat."

Leon shook his head again. "We'll go Dutch."

"Found it," Lisa announced as she zipped into the room. She handed Leon a glass of water and some pain reliever.

Leon broke into partially stifled laughter. Daley laughed outright. "So much for your headache."

"What?" Lisa demanded.

"Old joke," Leon said. He swallowed the pills and drank the water.

* * *

Nene started and twitched her hands away from the coffee mug. "Owie!"

Sylia met her eyes for a moment, a tiny crease hinted on her brow, and transferred the drink into a far more insulated cup.

"Careful, Nene. You don't want to injure yourself more, do you?" Linna sat up in the Jacuzzi across from Nene and frowned at her friend.

"You mean you don't want me to." Nene rolled her eyes. "Thank you, Sylia," she added as she took the extra insulated cup with her lightly bandaged hands.

Linna smiled impishly. "You're not getting out of our night on the town that easily, you know."

Nene stuck out her tongue at Linna and giggled. Sylia shook her head slightly and gazed upward for a moment.

Settling back in her chair next to the Jacuzzi, Sylia spoke. "A little delay might be for the best."

"If we get delayed until Mackie gets back it just won't be the same," Linna said. "Although I suppose we could stuff him into a dress for our girls night out."

Nene gasped, then sputtered in outrage as Linna broke into peals of laughter.

Sylia's eyes widened and she quickly put down her tea and coughed. "For shame, Linna," she said, although her lips were quirked up at the corners. "That was _horribly_ timed."

"I thought it was perfect, myself," Linna managed as she wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.

If looks could kill, Linna would have been in for some serious injury from Nene's glare. The red-head relented after a moment and turned to the other woman. "Sylia, how long _can_ we put this off? Do we have any jobs coming up?"

Sylia sighed and shook her head. "No, we have nothing for… quite some time. Certainly not until we have more information about that boomer networking system you ran into."

"I loaded a copy of the files I got on that into our computer system." Nene noted.

Sylia nodded. "That's good, although I'm afraid I won't be able to look at them any time soon."

Nene looked startled, Linna looked… resigned.

Sylia continued. "I'm afraid some business took an unexpected turn, and will be keeping me busy for a while. Nene? Would you please start the analysis when you're feeling better? You can get Mackie to work with you on it when he arrives, too."

Nene nodded.

Sylia's watch beeped softly and she glanced at it. "I'm sorry, it looks like I have some business that needs my attention." She smiled mildly. "Could you ladies excuse me?"

Nene and Linna consented and Sylia took her leave. Although, as she was walking away, Linna confided to Nene. "She was _really_ on edge tonight." Nene nodded.

Sylia went to her private rooms, and as the door closed behind her, she raised her wand and said the words. The flare of ribbons and light faded, and Sylia, with staff-key in one hand and a purse matching her uniform over her shoulder, vanished from the room. Dutifully, the lights in her apartment remained on for a few more seconds, then switched themselves off.

* * *

In what might, or might not have been a place, by a gate that was and would be, two women met.

"Welcome, Sailor Pluto," Setsuna greeted Sylia.

A smile quirked across Sylia's lips as she reciprocated the greeting. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting long," she added.

Setsuna shook her head. "Time has no meaning here."

Sylia slightly tilted her head. "I was under the impression that the time I spent in the mundane world _did_ matter."

"I'm sorry," Setsuna apologized. "That's not strictly the case."

"I see," Sylia noted. She glanced around at the featureless gray around them and then at the quiescent gates. "Is there somewhere else we can talk? I don't find this… location helpful for a meeting or briefing. Though I can see how it would be the best place for certain types of training."

"Are you always so… analytical?"

"Frequently yes," admitted Sylia. "More so when I'm taking in a lot at once." She put a hand on the purse. "If security is an issue, I can easily provide a very secure suite."

Setsuna's brows rose. "I see. You have a position of some authority in your era then."

"Authority? No, not really. Wealth?…"

Nodding, Setsuna stated, "Authority in another sense then."

Shaking her head, Sylia turned to look a the quiescent gates. "Perhaps. Or perhaps not.

"My father," Sylia offered, "was a brilliant inventor."

"I see," Setsuna replied, frowning. "I— hmm, well, that's for later in more comfortable surroundings." She, too, looked around the featureless gray. "As it happens though, I did have a place prepared that we can use."

"In your era?"

Setsuna shook her head. "No. I have… another place in mind."

* * *

The latest J-Pop softly drifted from the computer's speakers and Andrew periodically hummed along with short snatches of it as he switched between working on the computer and looking through a microscope on the lab bench behind him.

He looked up from his work as a short-haired man walked up and put a folder on his desk. "Hello, Toshiya," he smiled at the newcomer.

"Hi, Andrew," Toshiya grinned back. "We've finished the dump of the LAN manager's neural net, the raw data is in the usual work directory."

Andrew's smile expanded a bit at his words. "Oh, thank you, Toshiya. Have you taken a glance at it?"

Toshiya nodded. "Yup, looks like we're on the right track, but Yōko's the expert on that model of neural net."

"Good, good." Andrew nodded in response, and waved a hand at the computer and the microscope. "Could you please tell Yōko to take a look at it whenever she finishes with her current project? I'm afraid I'm a little tied up."

"Sure, Doc, no problem."

"Thank you, Toshiya."

Toshiya nodded and took his leave, as Andrew turned back to humming along with the background music.

* * *

Yawning, Nene set down the pen she had been idly spinning and reached for her coffee. After taking a sip she made a face and dumped it out in the sink.

Now standing, she paced around her apartment for a bit, trying to tidy the clutter a little. When she had moved a few things into piles, she returned to her desk. Picking up the data cartridge Daley had given her, she regarded it dubiously. "May as well get started," she muttered and loaded it into her system.

A moment later she was shaking her head and grinning. "Daley, you're too paranoid." She leaned forward and started examining a file titled "Buma LAN Server Image."

Hours passed.

"This is nuts," Nene muttered, looking at the data analysis of the image of the server's buffer. One type of data filled the entire buffer: text. No embedded binary chunks, no encoded segments, just pure generic multi-lingual text. She started to shrug, and the shrug turned into a joint cracking stretch. "Gah," she muttered, and copied the buffer into a text viewer.

A few characters—Kanji, Greek, some symbols—appeared on the screen, drowning in a sea of place-holders for letters the system's fonts didn't cover.

Nene muttered a vile curse and spent a half-hour finding and installing enough fonts to cover everything. Then she turned back to the text viewer. Gibberish met her eyes. She stared at it for a while looking for a hint of a pattern, idly spinning her pen and sipping at her tea.

Gradually, her eyelids drooped, and her face tilted down to rest on the keyboard.

Nene woke to the chirp of the doorbell. She lifted her head and shook away the traces of her dream and a sense of being late. Rubbing her face as she stood, she headed for the door.

"Naoko?" Nene blinked as she glanced at the security monitor. She opened the door. "Naoko? What are you doing here?"

"Hi Nene!" Naoko sang, then started giggling.

Nene helped the madly giggling Naoko to a chair, half-starting to laugh herself. "What? What is it?"

Naoko managed to choke down the giggles just enough to tell her. "You have keyboard-face!" Then she was off again.

Nene blinked and went over to glance in a mirror. She stared at her reflection for a moment, then turned to face Naoko with a sheepish smile and her face as red as her hair. "Oops." She rubbed the back of her head with a lightly bandaged hand.

Still giggling, Naoko managed to stand. "Okay, that's it, no more computer games for you today!" She said, giving Nene an excuse while pointing a stern finger at her friend.

Smiling feebly, Nene nodded. She dropped her hand and asked, "So… what's up?"

"It's my lunch break."

Nene blinked and glanced at the clock. "It's lunch-time already?"

Now frowning, Naoko shook her head. "It's been lunch-time for a while." She took Nene by the arm and steered her out the door. "C'mon, and join me."

"Okay," Nene agreed weakly as they left the apartment. "Ah! My face!" She exclaimed just before the door closed. Naoko giggled as Nene rushed back in for a moment to rub away the marks on her face.

* * *

"Are you sure you should have that?" Naoko asked as she watched Nene lift a fork over a slice of cake.

Nene paused. "I've got a lot of healing up to do; that takes a lot of energy, you know." She set down the fork and matched Naoko in taking a sip of tea.

The sun peeked out from behind the clouds, and both women turned to glance through the café's window at the suddenly sunlit streets and city traffic.

"Yeah," Naoko said at last, and turned back to look at Nene again. "I'm glad you made it out of that; I was worried about you."

"I've had worse," Nene muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing!" Nene chirped.

Naoko shook her head. "Seriously, Nene. What ever possessed you to get you to jump in with front-line types like that?"

Nene gave her a sickly grin. "It seemed like a good idea at the time? Besides, it didn't _start_ that way." Nene started to frown.

"Still.…" Naoko picked up a spoon and turned it over a few times before stirring her tea again.

Nene focused on the swirling tea. "Naoko.… We made it out, that's what counts." She straightened in her chair and picked up her own tea again, sipping as fast as the hot liquid would allow.

"What's wrong?" Naoko asked.

"Um," Nene said and stopped sipping. Her eyes unfocused for a second. "We'd better hurry so you're not late."

Naoko laughed.

"What?" Nene asked.

"I won't be," Naoko grinned slyly and toyed with her spoon again.

Nene tilted her head. "Huh?"

"Dave's covering for me." Naoko paused to take a sip of her tea.

"Okay," Nene drawled slowly, a tiny furrow creasing her brow.

Naoko set down her tea and straightened up primly, grinning at Nene.

The furrow deepened. "Hmm?"

A slender pair of arms suddenly wrapped around Nene from behind. "Hi! Nene!" Lisa's voice chirped all too loudly in Nene's ear, and the redhead jumped ineffectually in her seat, pinned by the weight on her back.

Naoko burst out laughing. "Hi, Lisa!" she gasped between laughs.

Nene took a couple of panicky gasps of air. "Gah! Lisa!" she puffed breathlessly.

The arms disappeared.

" 'Gah?' " Lisa stomped around to stand as close to in front of Nene as the table would allow. Nene turned to face her fully, and Lisa pouted, "That's all you can say?"

Nene opened and closed her mouth repeatedly as words failed.

Naoko slumped in her seat as a fit of giggles seized her.

Suddenly grinning again, Lisa gave Nene a hug. "It's so good to see you again, Nene!" The blond pulled back and held Nene at arms length. "You're looking a little pale though," she said dubiously.

The bandages registered and Lisa's expression fell. "Yikes—"

Nene shook herself. "Lisa!" she snapped, and glared over at Naoko, growling. "Naoko! You could have warned me."

"Where's the fun in that?" Naoko giggled. "Don't fret, Lisa, she's going to be just fine."

"But—"

"Weren't you just fussing over me?" Nene glowered at Naoko, a faint growl still edging her voice.

"I'd heard about the cast, not her mummified hands!" Lisa protested, also flashing a frown at Naoko, then she turned back to Nene. "Are you going to be all right? Do you need anything?"

Nene made a face. "Well, if you're going to treat me like I'm made of glass," she began, then drew herself up haughtily. "We would like!" she intoned, then switched back to her usual voice, "more tea, please!"

"Oh," Lisa said, getting into the act. "Of course, milady." She poured another cup as Naoko went into another short round of giggles.

When they settled down, and Lisa had gotten seated, Naoko turned to Nene again. "So, Nene, you're a princess now?"

"Of course!" Nene exclaimed, not missing a beat. "Couldn't you tell?"

"Oh, no. Not at all," Naoko shook her head. "Your disguise is very effective." She managed to look innocent.

"Mmph!" Lisa said, almost choking on the water she had grabbed. She hastily set it down and grabbed a napkin.

"Oh," Nene started to preen.

"You've managed to be completely unlike a princess," Naoko added before losing it again.

Nene's expression fell. "… And the peanut gallery strikes again," she grumbled, narrowing her eyes at Naoko.

"Naoko," Lisa shook her head and waggled a finger at the brunette. "Don't be mean."

Settling down, Naoko apologized. "Sorry, Lisa, Nene."

"What's with you and all the joking lately?" Nene grumbled.

A touch a red burned Naoko's cheeks. "Well…" she drawled. "Things just haven't been the same since Leon and Daley got promoted off the floor; there just isn't anyone else that's such a floor show like those two were." Naoko toyed with her spoon, idly stirring the dregs of her tea. "And you're always investigating network stuff these days. I guess I'm just a little stressy. So, sorry, really." She shrugged.

Nene relented. "Okay—"

"Aren't you taking enough advantage of your concert chances?" Lisa interjected.

"Oooh!" Naoko exclaimed. "That reminds me, Lisa. I've got tickets for you," she dove into her purse. "For the first spring concert after Vision hits Mega-Tokyo." Naoko passed a pair of tickets to the blond.

"Woohoo!" Lisa cheered. "Backstage passes! Alright!"

"Have fun!" Naoko ordered, then added, "Oh, yeah! Do you keep copies of all the pictures you take?"

Still grinning about the tickets, Lisa looked up at Naoko. "Huh? Oh, usually, why?" She tucked the tickets into her purse.

"Oh.… It's just that the last time all three of us were together—" Naoko began, and Nene went wide-eyed and eeped "—you had some photos for Nene." Naoko started to grin, slyly. "I was wondering if you had any more, so I could see what she's gotten for a boyfriend." Naoko sighed theatrically. "She's still in denial."

"Well…" Lisa began, leaning back in the chair and lacing her hands behind her head. She stared at the ceiling for a moment, watching an increasingly red-faced Nene out of the corner of her eye. Naoko's eyes crinkled as she watched Nene quiver and work her mouth at Lisa, and only tiny, strangled squeaks escaped the red-head.

Lisa leaned forward before Nene could explode. "Sorry, Naoko, I don't have anything _with_ me.…"

"Eeyah!" Nene finally exclaimed, shrilly, drawing gazes to their table. "Lisa!" she squeaked.

Lisa and Naoko winced, and Lisa made a show of rubbing her ear. "Ow! Watch the ears, Nene. My poor ears!" Lisa grumbled.

"Lisa! Don't you dare!"

"Nene!" Lisa shot back. "Don't worry, I can't show _those_ pictures."

Naoko blinked. "Can't show _those—_" Naoko repeated. "Why? Was she dancing naked on the table again or something?"

"No, she—" Lisa began, then gave Naoko a double-take. "Wait. Nene dances naked?"

The subject of their discussion put her head down on the table and hid under her arms.

"Mmm hmm," Naoko nodded. "She's a regular wild child."

Nene whimpered. "Please, stop."

Lisa glanced at her, then looked back to Naoko. "Have we embarrassed her enough?" Lisa asked.

Naoko dismissed the idea. "Hardly! After what she went through the other day she should get as much blood-flow to her face as she can stand! After all, that's healthy for her skin, and a—"

"A girl's face is her fortune!" Lisa and Nene chorused, with Lisa following up with a chuckle and Nene with a wan smile.

Naoko sank in her seat. "Oh, you know that already," she said, weakly.

Lisa nodded. "I think we should stop now," she said, tilting her head and looking at Nene. "After all, her face is even more red than her hair right now. And that's got to be taking blood from her arms.…"

"Eep!" Naoko said, suddenly contrite. "I didn't think of that! I'm horribly sorry, Nene; I don't want to make things worse!"

"Eh, I'll live." Nene waved off the worry, then caught sight of her watch and bit her lip. "Naoko, are you sure you can take this much time?"

Naoko shook her head. "Nene! Stop fretting about the time! None of us are in a hurry today."

"Sorry! Sorry!" Nene sat back in her chair and shrank in on herself a little. "I'm just feeling guilty about taking so much of your time, today."

Lisa shook her head. "Well, don't be. If you don't let anyone look out for you and try to keep going non-stop you're going to wear yourself out and end up like Leon."

"Sorry!" Nene said again. "Wait, Leon?"

"Yeah," said Lisa, popping an ice cube in her mouth and chewing on it. Naoko grimaced at the sight. "Oh, I swung by last night reminding everybody about uncle Todo's welcome out of the hospital party—you remember about that from my message, right?"

Nene shook her head. "Er. No, I haven't checked lately.…"

Naoko carefully avoided looking at Lisa, though she still winced every time a little crunch came from the ice Lisa was chewing. "She was playing video games all morning!"

"I was not!" Nene objected hotly.

Naoko smiled weakly at Nene. "Then what were you doing?"

Putting a hand behind her head, Nene tried to return the smile, though it seemed more like a grimace. She forced a faint laugh.

Lisa finished off the ice, and Naoko relaxed back into her chair. "See?" Naoko faced Lisa again.

"Um, okaay?" Lisa drawled.

Nene growled. "What about Leon?"

"Oh. Right," began Lisa. "Well, when I stopped by to see Leon, he was really out of it. He said it was only because he needed sleep, but that didn't seem right to me. So I went back out and grabbed Daley—he was giving me a lift around to see everyone who didn't get the word—and we dragged Leon out to make sure he got something to eat, I mean, he was shaky and pale and looked like he'd been starving for days. He looked a lot better by the time Daley tucked him in, later."

Naoko started shaking her head while Lisa was explaining, then added "He came in just before I left for lunch. I think he's okay now, but I could see he's still a little pale." She faced Lisa. "I had no idea he was getting _that_ bad."

Lisa nodded. "Yup. I think he really needs to have someone looking after him. Daley can't, I mean, with how their schedules don't line up and all."

Still glowering a little, Nene took a sip of her tea and dryly spoke. "Like maybe his girlfriend should look after him?"

Lisa's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and she turned to give Nene an aghast stare. "She's got the nurturing instincts of a Black Widow!"

"Oh, come on!" Nene protested, leaning back into her chair. "She's not quite _that_ bad." Then she blinked and looked aside for a second, her brow creasing. "Did I just say that?" She mouthed silently.

Naoko leaned forward, waving her arms. "Wait! Wait! Leon has a girlfriend? For real?" She glanced back and forth between Lisa and Nene, who had turned to stare at her. "What?"

"How?" Lisa began in a strangled voice. "How could— I mean, you've got— urgh?"

Nene leaned over and lightly put her bandaged hand on Lisa's shoulder. "Always the last to know," she said, nodding sagely. "_Always._"

"Urgh," Lisa responded, folding her arms and sitting back heavily.

Naoko blinked at them. "What? I mean, this is _Leon_ we're talking about? The same Leon who's made an art of asking for brush-offs?"

Nene tilted her head. "Naoko, when you get special Replicants tickets, you get to meet the band and roadies sometimes, don't you?"

"So he's going out with one of the roadies?" Naoko looked aside and tapped a finger against her lips. "Which one? I don't keep track of them all."

"Ohh no," Nene said, cutting a hand across the air and shaking her head. She gave Naoko a wicked grin. "_You_ get to figure this out. I'll help you with the process of elimination though. Let's start from the top. Of the band."

"What? Priss herself? She's going out with.… No." Naoko's eyes went wide and she started shaking her head. "No no no no."

"What? Leon also known as Kai? That Leon? The one that Zhora keeps on a short leash because he out-drummers the drummers?" Nene put down her now empty teacup.

Lisa muttered, just loud enough to be heard, "It's got to be an act, it's _got_ to be."

"But—" Naoko protested.

"Of course, they're messing with everyone on purpose. I mean, who would expect them to be leaving out the fact that there's more than one Leon? Of course, Priss does that to get some privacy."

Naoko shook her head at Nene. "Gah!" she protested.

Nodding sympathetically, Nene reached out to pat Naoko's hand. "Don't feel bad, Naoko. Even a lot of people in the office think our Leon is just being a fanboy when he mentions Priss." Nene offered a smile.

"This is just too weird," Naoko shook her head again. "Nene!" she glared at the red-head, who looked up from checking her watch and pulled her hands out of view. "Stop checking the time!"

"Sorry! Sorry!"

Naoko gave out and exasperated puff and turned to Lisa. "She's been obsessing over her watch all day," Naoko explained, getting a plastic smile and a nod in return.

"Er," said Lisa. "So, Nene," she turned to the red-head. "Are you going to be able to make it for uncle Todo's party? He should be a lot more lively now that his heart replacement is done."

"Eh, I should be able to.…"

"You're okay; Dave'll swap with you so you can make it." Naoko offered.

"Okay, that's—" Nene began, then glared at the brunette. "Naoko, we're not in the same section any more. He can't cover the network beat."

Naoko waved off her objections. "Details, details. I'll get something worked out. However it works, you'll be able to make it. Leon's orders," she cheerfully informed the red-head. "Oh," she added. "Leon's going to make it, too."

Nene grinned. "Do you think he'll get the chief all spun up?" she said, referring to Lisa's uncle by his old title.

"How could he not?" Naoko said in mock astonishment, then she grinned and joined Nene in a short fit of giggles.

"Ah, okay?" Lisa said.

"Office humor," Naoko said, her eyes still crinkling. "You'll see; it'll be grand."

Naoko's eyes fell on a bank's clock in the distance. "Well, I've probably heaped enough abuse on Dave's willingness to cover me," Naoko said, ignoring Nene checking her watch and making a childish face. "So I'll leave you two to catch up."

Making her goodbyes, Naoko grabbed the check and slipped out.

Nene took the opportunity to ham up checking her watch, getting a head-shake from Lisa. "Had to get that out of your system?"

Nodding, Nene replied. "Yup. Naoko thinks I'm turning into some kind of work-aholic." The red-head shuddered. "But what about you? How have you been?"

"Busy, busy!" Lisa leaned forward. "Mostly running around trying to make sure everyone's heard about uncle Todo. But I've also been applying around to see who needs a star reporter," she flashed Nene a brilliant grin and thumbed her ever-present camera strap. "That's looking pretty good, by the way.

"But I want to hear about what happened to you!" Lisa continued. "They said you went up against a whole building full of rampaging boomers! I want to know what _really_ happened."

"You want the scoop?" Nene grinned.

Lisa rubbed the back of her head. "Eh," she shrugged, "I'm a reporter; it's a reflex." The blond leaned forward again, and spoke seriously. "And I worry about my friends when you get in stuff like this, you know?" She leaned back again. "Of course, a scoop won't hurt.…"

Nene laughed and shook her head at the quick reversals in Lisa's activity. "There's not much to tell; we went in, got surrounded, and when one shorted out it set off the sprinklers and shorted out the rest."

"That's it? Pfft," Lisa snorted. "You're just going to leave me in suspense about what happened to you hands and arm? And is that all that got injured?"

"Oh, if you're going to be _morbid…_" the red-head began, and filled in Lisa with more details, to which the blond listened avidly.

Although she was frowning by the end of it. "That still doesn't make any sense," Lisa complained, frowning.

Nene shrugged. "That's all I've got right now. Daley's really the one to see about making it make sense." She examined the tea, and found they had finished it off. Nene frowned into her empty cup.

Tilting her head for a moment, Lisa watched Nene fidget with the cup. "Well!" she brightened. "I should get back to my errands. I'll swing by your place later when I have more time and.…"

Nene grinned, relaxing. "And we'll chill and hang out?"

"Yes!" the blond declared, taking a moment to help Nene to her feet and walk her out to the sidewalk across the street from her apartment, making plans on the way.

"And I'll bring the ice-cream!" Lisa declared as they split up. "See you then!" the blond added and scurried off.

Nene waved her goodbyes, and blew out a deep breath. "That was close," she muttered, shuddering at the thought of Naoko finding out about Nene's other job, and went to cross the street.


End file.
